Price for MCHS Sixties Reunion tickets now tentatively set at $125 [final figure: $150] single, $200 [final figure: $250] per couple

On June 9, 2014 Peter Mearns and Jaan Pill met at the Tim Horton's in Long Branch (south Etobicoke). The coffee shop is to the right of the frame, not visible in the photo.

Peter Mearns and Jaan Pill met on June 9, 2014 at a Tim Horton on Lake Shore Blvd. West in Long Branch (south Etobicoke) not far from the Fair Grounds Cafe at Twenty Fourth Street and Lake Shore.

At the end of this post I’ll share Peter’s story about the arrival of Mr. Edelstein at the door of the Grade 11-B classroom in 1962-63. It was like the sheriff finally walking into the saloon.

Anyway, first we attend to business. At our meeting at Tim Horton, we went over a document, in the form of a PDF file, from Old Mill Toronto, outlining meal and bar options for the October 17, 2015 MCHS Sixties Reunion.

Ticket prices

Based on the document, our sense was that it would be prudent to set the ticket prices at $125 single, $200 per couple.

We’ll make a final decision at a formal meeting of the Reunion Committee on Monday, June 16, 2014 in Kitchener, Ontario at 11:30 am at the same location as the May 21, 2014 meeting. If any other MCHS alumni would like to join us for that meeting, please let us know. So far we have Peter Mearns, Lynn Legge, and Jaan Pill attending.

Work is proceeding well on the MCHS Reunion database, thanks to the work of Howard Hight and Diana Redden. We are also pleased to report that Diana Redden has filled out her Bio Information Sheet. Cheryl Houston, in her role as managing editor for the bios, has compiled the data into a biography text. Once we have the final version from Diana, we will post it. We owe thanks to Cheryl for creation of the bio form, and for her work in editing of the texts.

Mini-reunion in Montreal in mid-August 2014

A number of MCHS alumni living in Montreal are planning an informal get together in mid-August, 2014 in Montreal, on the occasion of a stopover in Montreal by Ruth MacLeod, who lives in Australia. Please contact me through this website if you have not already been in touch with Ruth and would like to join this meeting.

If anyone else is interested in similar get togethers, anywhere in the world, wherever MCHS alumni would have occasion to meet informally for coffee or lunch or whatever, please let us know. Such events can be held any time, before the Sixties Reunion, or after. All it takes is one person to get the process under way, as Ruth has done.

In the event I’ve missed some important news item, or mixed things up, let me know. Among other things, typos and inadvertent, unintended word mixups – as in saying Free Trade Coffee when I meant Fair Trade Coffee – occasionally turn up in my texts. I usually manage to catch them but occasionally they slip by. It’s in the nature of perception that some things slip by. With the years, the slippage increases, although many strategies are available to address this. I appreciate corrections.

On with Peter’s story.

New English teacher for 11-B classroom (1962-63) at Malcolm Campbell High School

Peter Mearns, as part of an online discussion about stories related to Malcolm Campbell High School in the Sixties, has shared the following overview about 11-B in 1962-1963. I don’t usually have a hyphen for 11-B, but Peter likes to use one, as do other students, so I’ll go with that, for this post, maybe for others.

To set the scene, Peter notes that in 1962-63, in 11-B there were 6 girls [as counted in the yearbook] in the class. “The rest were boys who were not noted for good manners, quiet dispositions or general politeness.”

To summarize the situation that next arose, we can say that several teachers came and went, with the aim of teaching the class. The aim was not met. The aim was not met for some time, as a number of teachers gave it a try. A crisis arose: Who would teach this class? Is this a class that’s capable of being managed?

“That’s when Mr. Edelstein was introduced,” notes Peter, “and in the first class was able to make Attila the Hun look like a Sunday School teacher. There were no discipline problems afterwards that I can recall.”

Scott Munro’s recollection

Scott Munro (MCHS 63) corroborates Peter’s recollection of Mr. Edelstein. One of the
first things he did was to dress us down over the previous English teacher, Scott recalls.

“I learned some key concepts,” adds Scott Munro, “from Mr. Edelstein, things that lasted well into university English courses. To this day, I think carefully before using the word ‘also’ in my writing, for fear of lapsing into grade 5 writing, thus incurring the wrath of Mr. Edelstein.”

Comment

My sense of the story is that we were fortunate that a teacher arrived, in the end, whose capacity for nastiness matched – and, perhaps, ever so slightly exceeded – the capacity for nastiness demonstrated by the class. At times Mr. Edelstein, our new English teacher – and an excellent teacher of the language – would remark that we had caused another, previous first-rate previous English teacher to seek employment elsewhere within the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. I remember the previous teacher. I hope things turned out well for him.

We had good English teachers all through the years, as I recall. English Literature and Composition were two subjects that I especially enjoyed.